Dizzy Wright just released his Golden Age mixtape, and the dense 22-track affair has already garnered a fair amount of praise from fans. In recent interview, the Funk Volume rapper got into his early beginnings in hip hop, which began with his mother and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, as well as his early experiences being homeless.
"I started writing poetry, not really as a rap," Dizzy said of his first attempt at rhyming. "My mom was actually writing for me in the very, very beginning," he revealed.
Wright naturally grew tired of his mother being his ghostwriter by his teenage years. "I was about 13," said the rapper of the first time he started to care about writing, explaining that his mom's words no longer resonated with him. "It wasn't authentic any more, and it started to matter."
Dizzy's rap career had begun as an extension of his mother's involvement in the music industry, but Wright quickly took the reigns of his artistic output as his interest in music grew. "It stopped being all about my mom," he said. "I started having some emotions toward it, and that's when I made that change."
Dizzy also spoke of his early experiences living in a homeless shelter with his family.
“I don't really want for anything,” he said. “I don't expect anything, like when you don't have nothing, anything is cool. Like I said in one of my songs [‘Maintain’], ‘We were strong when we was weak / That's why I pray before I eat,’ you know, and shit like that. It's just like that's the truth because it wasn't about material things or fly shoes. It was like, when I was old enough to start getting my own shoes and stuff, that's why I was so into them like that, because I never able to get cool shoes. So to throw parties and be able to make this side money, and be able to just, not have no bills, just be able to buy the little things you like, it gives you just a different appreciation for things for sure.”
Wright then spoke of one of his first influences in hip hop-- Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.
“A particular artist that inspired me to rhyme was Krayzie Bone for sure,” he revealed. “Bone Thugs-N-Harmony as a whole, but Krayzie Bone just had that flavor. I remember my older brother, we used to have long hair. I just remember my older brother walking around with his shirt off just rapping and shit, like he was a part of the group. I remember just being at the top of the stairs and like walking down the stairs a little bit and being able to see into the living room like, ‘Look at this fool.’ But, that, I mean, that eventually became me as I started getting older. That's what we grew up on. That was the soundtrack to the house, you know, Bone Thugs-N-harmony.”
Watch the full interview below.
